In Who's Name? Chapter 23: Into The Ocean, a final fantasy viii fanfic

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Characters and universe borrowed from Final Fantasy VIII.

I wish to apologise for taking so long to update, but I was sidetracked by schoolwork, as well as the fact that I ventured into yet another fandom, X/1999. Yes, things are wrapping up nicely, but there may be a sequel to this. I'm planning it right now…

This part is dedicated to SitaSilverBreeze and to Rose, for their reviews, which kept reminding me that I have a duty to complete this story! ^_^

SeeDs need to have brains as well as acting skills.

Title: In Who's Name?

Part 23: Into The Ocean

18: 00: 03, Balamb Garden, Commander's Office

A tall young man with a large cowboy hat perched low over his forehead burst into the Commander's Office, the door flying open and banging loudly as he practically hurtled into the room and crashed accidentally into a nearby stack of books and files. Almost immediately, he clapped one hand to his eye.

"Oh, ^%$#, my contact lens!" he growled. He immediately bent down and tried to look for it.

Zell Dincht, who had been hanging all over Squall Leonhart's shoulder as the latter typed away at his computer, promptly straightened. "Yo, I'll help you look for it!"

"You'll only crush it…" muttered Irvine Kinneas, still hunting and ignoring the stack of books that lay around him. "Ugh, crap, I can't see a damn thing." He gave a defeated sigh and rose to his feet, carefully stumbling away to a position beside the door, where he remained.

At the computer, Squall Leonhart frowned. Nida, who was now hanging all over Squall's shoulder and practically blocking the entire screen from view, shifted a little, but kept his position as Squall cleared his throat.

"An-xin… it's jammed."

Thiyo An-xin, better known as An, got up from her seated position on the floor, where she had been busy braiding Rinoa's hair. "Hung," she corrected.

Squall shrugged and rose from his chair carefully. He waited until An had seated herself and Nida was in position, before he walked up to Rinoa. She was already standing, apparently playing with the braid An had managed to create.

Squall glanced around. Zell was making slow, steady tracks around the office with narrowed eyes, purportedly looking for Irvine's lost contact lens. Irvine himself was leaning carelessly against the door, hat pulled over his face, and to all appearances taking a nap standing up. An-xin, Zell's girlfriend, was busy at the computer, supposedly restoring it, but making little clicks of annoyance every now and then, as if it was giving her more trouble than she had expected from a tiny little restart problem. Half an hour's grace, Xu had said. Half an hour…they were breaking the rules that required them to inform Headmaster Cid Kramer of any military action taken.

"Rules are made to be broken, Leonhart." Seifer Almasy glanced coolly at the Commander, arrogant green eyes flickering with impatience.

Squall stiffened slightly and unconsciously tensed, bracing himself for the inevitability—a final, acerbic comment from Seifer's lashing tongue. Didn't the fool know he had to be quiet? If Seifer gave it all away—! But the other youth remained curiously silent, although he did not take his challenging gaze from Squall's face.

Rinoa twirled around, her eyes on Squall. Smiling, she took his hand, as if being playful. But her voice sounded quietly in Squall's head. Squall? You can start giving orders now. Try touching the person you're talking to and concentrate really hard on him or her. It will be easier for me that way…

Squall nodded. He glanced briefly at Selphie, who promptly bounced forward, eyes bright and her tiny chin lifted up proudly. She snapped a cheeky salute at the startled Squall, then leaned forward slightly to touch him on the shoulder. One bright eye winked.

Ready for battle, Commander!

Aloud, she squealed, "Ooh, you two look so cute together! Here, you need to salute like me, and you'll look even cuter—I guarantee!"

Rinoa giggled and even Seifer smirked a little.

Squall blinked once, then recovered. He stared hard at Selphie, scowling slightly as if he couldn't believe his ears... a typical Squall response. But he was speaking to her, his voice in her head.

Selphie, you've worked most often with most of the SeeDs…and you can read people very well. Get twelve of our best SeeDs. Use some kind of excuse—Garden Festival or something. I don't want anyone to know what we're doing. I want all the SeeDs to be people who graduated from our batch—they fought Ultimecia and I think they're the ones we can trust most in this situation. I don't want anyone who's been with us for less than two years. Use your judgment.

Selphie winked again, stepping back. Then she saluted smartly again and took off, calling back cheekily.

"I'll go get the camera! And don't forget what I said—salute and you'll be cuter!"

At that moment, Zell, who had more or less made a nearly complete round of the room, happened to look up.

Across the room, Irvine tipped his hat even lower.

The lights in the office went out, leaving it in complete darkness. At the same time, there were the sounds of metal and glass smashing.

18: 11: 03, Balamb Garden cafeteria

"Did you hear?"

"No, what?"

"Selphie Tilmitt just hauled up some of the really senior SeeDs to help her on the Committee. I saw them run by just now!"

"Really? But she didn't ask me…and I'm on the Garden Committee!"

"Well, you're not a senior SeeD. Those she called included two of our instructors. I think she must want them to do a special item for the Garden Festival!"

"Oh, yeah, I heard her mentioning it at one of the meetings. She said she would even try to get the Commander in and you know, he's always difficult about things like that!"

"I hate to interrupt you people, but could someone lend me a mobile phone? Mine isn't working. It was fine just this morning too! And I just took it for servicing last month! I'm going to buy a new one as soon as I ever can…"

"Sorry, mine hasn't been working for the past ten minutes…"

"Yeah, me too…"

"And mine…"

"I have a feeling there's a really weird breakdown going on somewhere."

"And the Garden server's crashed…or else there's something wrong with my laptop, you know…can't log in, can't get any access, huh…"

"Yeah, me too!"

"Me three!"

"This is really weird…"

"You think something's wrong?"

"Maybe—"

"Attention, Garden. I repeat, attention! This is Instructor Xu speaking on behalf of the Commander's office. I have three important announcements to make. As of now, Garden is under quarantine, effective immediately. No one is allowed to leave the grounds. We have several suspected cases in the infirmary down with the Esthar flu. I repeat, Garden is under quarantine, effective immediately. Second, we are experiencing a satellites and overall communications breakdown. The excessive downloading and uploading of material through our Garden server has resulted in a small problem, which the Headmaster's Office is attempting to correct. We will also be giving the system a full overhaul so that future excessive downloading of entertainment material will not result in such a drastic collapse in future. In addition, we will be experimenting with a frequency alteration which is expected to interfere with the satellite transmissions to our Garden. Hence equipment such as mobile phones will be unable to receive signals. These changes will take place over the next two days. We expect operations to resume on the third day. Finally, there will be a Garden Committee Meeting three days from now. Instructor Tilmitt will chair this meeting and it will be held at 1900 hours in the Blue Conference Room on level 2."

The chatter in the cafeteria began almost before the announcements were through.

"Oh, that would explain the mobile phones and my laptop!"

"Yeah! I hate the quarantine part most. I haven't been out on the town for weeks."

"Me too. Man, I hope those Esthar flu people get better soon."

18: 27: 21, undisclosed location

She lay on her stomach, half on the bed, half off it, one hand trailing on the floor, long, bedraggled hair that was once golden, now slightly matted and stuck together in clumps. The room she was in was bare and simple—the walls were painted white, the only window was a small one with bars, high up; aside from the single metal bed with its thin, white-coloured sheets, there was a single chest of drawers in the corner, fortunately a pale brown colour, the only respite from the whiteness of the room unless you counted the floor, which was plain grey cement. There was also a plain footstool, by the side of the bed.

She was alone. In a cell even her dulled brain could identify at first glance as a room in which they kept those who were considered to be mentally ill. So she was mentally ill. Somehow her mind registered that idea with no surprise and with an increasing sense of futility.

She was losing her mind.

Perhaps Garden had put her here. She could not quite remember what had happened before she came to and found herself in this small white room. Everything was a hazy memory of quiet figures talking in low voices, as if not to disturb her, and of white lights and chemical smells, and being wheeled to and fro, sometimes carried on stretchers, sometimes carried to and fro by people in uniforms of some sort. They had probably dosed her with drugs. Drugs, and too much time alone, in empty rooms devoid of anything except too-strong lights and white, white walls, and she was always tired, so tired…She wanted to sleep but she couldn't. She couldn't drift off into oblivion. Half-awake, half-asleep, never fully conscious…perhaps she had slept and she hadn't known that she had.

She didn't know anymore.

She didn't care.

Simpler for her if she could just die.

But she had already tried to kill herself, and she was too weak. Somehow she had been unable to focus properly on the thin bedsheets, let alone tear them into strips or fashion them into any sort of rope.

Why couldn't they let her die? If nobody cared enough to come for her, why?

Why…

…didn't…

…they…

…just…

…let…

…her…

…die…

And then, through the haze of her mind, strangest of all, she thought she felt someone lift her up.

"Miss Trepe?"

The voice was a bare whisper, soft and girlish, and she knew that she had never heard that voice before. But she did not turn. She was too tired. Too lost perhaps.

"Miss Trepe, please…"

Gentle hands carefully turned her over.

She was looking into the face of a stranger, a stocky teenage girl of about fifteen or so, with a dusting of freckles on both brown cheeks, and wild blond hair that fell into frantic dark eyes. But all she saw were the enormous, frantic dark eyes. They seemed to be telling her something…but what? She was too tired to think it over…

"Miss Trepe, please hurry. You must get up and go. They'll be here soon."

She was almost literally hoisted to her feet, and she found herself stumbling as she tried to connect her feet to the floor. It felt all wrong. She had not walked for what seemed like forever and it was killing her. More likely, she was killing the girl whom she was more or less draped all over.

"Leave me…"

Her own voice, hoarse and cracked with disuse, had finally spoken of its own accord. Leave me, she meant; don't take me with you, I'm probably too heavy. You'll hurt yourself. Except that she hadn't that much voice or strength to say that.

The girl didn't seem to have heard her, so Quistis tried to pull back a little, but she couldn't. The other girl was too strong for her.

And then the girl was dragging her, and she was tired, so tired…

18: 32: 10, somewhere near Fisherman's Horizon

The unmarked craft drifted silently, lazily, almost nonchalantly towards a general direction.

"Make for that strip," ordered the blond young man grimly. "That's the place."

The young man in the ten-gallon white hat standing behind him nodded thoughtfully. "A great place for hiding—they must have good military strategists there." He pushed back his hat. "I hope Vilar and his team get to Esthar in time," he added soberly. "They're our only hope there." He drew a deep breath. "I thought we could build a new world free of this corruption—" here he glanced at his compatriot, the blond man—"especially after the result of your trial. It was…unexpected."

"I had the best lawyer," responded the blond young man shortly. "Who came out of nowhere."

"Quisty found her," the other young man reminded him. "Funny thing, though, that lawyer disappeared right after your trial. I heard she sold publishing and film-making rights to her records of the story for a cool five million gil and then retired to one of the islands nearby. Did she give you any of that money?"

"Half of it."

The young man in the cowboy hat whistled. "Almasy, you must be rolling. You ought to be one of the richest kids around now."

Seifer Almasy shrugged. "I didn't take it. I—" He broke off, leaning forward as his breath caught in his throat.

Puzzled, Irvine Kinneas peered over his shoulder. His eyes widened.

Not far off, near the strip that they were heading for, were the only cliffs on the large island. There was someone walking at the edge of those cliffs, which fell in a sheer drop, all the way to the ocean, which churned below, crashing waves fiercely against the rocks.

"That's not…" Irvine's voice trailed off.

The figure was more clearly seen now, as their transport craft drew closer. It was the figure of a girl, or more accurately, a young woman, and her long blond hair spilled around her, buffeted by the winds. She was clad in what looked like a muddy brown ensemble that bared her arms from the shoulders down, and her legs. She seemed to be moving somewhat haphazardly, sometimes wandering close to the edge of the cliff, at other times drifting further away.

Quisty, don't…Seifer's grip on Hyperion tightened.

The girl did not seem to have noticed the appearance of a craft in the sky. Instead, she moved nearer and nearer to the edge of the cliffs. Then she stood there for an agonising moment.

He couldn't hold out any longer. "We've got to get down there!" shouted Seifer, lurching to his feet and knocking against Irvine. "Kishi, take this thing down there!"

The SeeD at the controls shook her head. "No, we can't. We'd alert the whole operation immediately. There has to be some other way—"

One of the other SeeDs in the craft gave a horrified shout. "She's fallen in!"

Seifer whirled, blanching. "QUISTIS!"

For a moment, the six SeeDs in the craft stared out through the panelled glass of the ship, down to the rushing waters beneath. Then Irvine turned to Seifer.

"There's still a chance," he said grimly. "Kishi, take us back to the sand flats—the flatter part, you know the place?"

"Yeah."

Seifer licked his lips. "Was that where…?"

Irvine shook his head. "No, but that's the closest."

Seifer stared at the cowboy-hatted young man. "She found me in the ocean…" A sudden light gleamed in his eyes. "The current."

Irvine nodded. "Exactly."

18: 46: 32, somewhere near Fisherman's Horizon

The waters were a deep, dark blue, with a tint of green in them, white caps foaming at the edges. He shaded his eyes and waited, cold dread coiling deep within him. Hyne, please, don't let me be too late…

Then he saw it. A faint flash of white, like an arm…or a body turned over by the waves.

He took a deep breath, and plunged into the ocean.